I am a best-selling author, and an extremely proud Forbes alum. A former writer and editor at Business Week, Inc. and Financial World, in addition to my six years at Forbes, I've written, co-written and “ghosted” numerous best-sellers including Customers for Life (with Carl Sewell.) My latest book, which I co-authored with Leonard A. Schlesinger and Charles F. Kiefer is Just Start: Take Action; Embrace Uncertainity; Create the Future published by Harvard Business Review Press. A long-time contributor to The New York Times, I'm also a contributing editor to both The Conference Board Review (where I also write a column) and M.I.T.’s Sloan Management Review. I'm a graduate of Rutgers College and Rutgers University Law School and am a member of both the New Jersey and Massachusetts bars, although I ask that you don't hold that against me.

11 Ways To Create More Time To Think

In the course of the last 10 days or so, I’ve had three in-depth conversations with businesspeople (two of them entrepreneurs) that I truly respect. The theme: Carving out more time to think.

All three people–two men and a woman–had been searching for ways to do it.

The three don’t know one another, but why they had this quest in common is easy to understand.

While it is undoubtedly true that superior execution is better than any great idea you can think of, you need new ideas if you are going to stay ahead of the competition. And it is awfully hard to come up with those ideas if you don’t have any time to think.

And so those three people were looking for ways to create “white space” in their lives that they could fill with new ideas.

Let me share with you the things they are trying. Then, I am going to ask you to tell me what works for you. But first, their 11 ideas.

1. Breakfast could be the most important meal of the day. One of the men has taken to getting up earlier and is in his local coffee shop by 5 a.m. He says he always buys a newspaper, “so I won’t look even more weird than I am,” but he spends virtually all of his time just staring into space. “The key, I find, is not to distract myself with things like checking email or voice mail, or making to do lists. I just sit and think.”

2. First things first. Intriguingly, the other two people I talked to also tried to carve out thinking time early in the day. But they did it before breakfast. Typically, they said, the first they used to do was check email and skim the headlines. Now, they are putting that off, until they have spent some time thinking about their most important objectives.

3. Simplifying. Stress and needless distractions (“where the heck did I put that file”) detract from your ability to think. Each of the people I talked to said they were taking steps to become even more organized. One of the ideas I particularly liked: Creating an agenda for the following day–with all the necessary supporting materials at hand–before they turned off their computer at night.

4. Reinstating the lunch break. Unless you are meeting with a client, there is a natural tendency to work through lunch; you have a quick sandwich or salad at your desk while tackling yet another thing you have to do. One of the ideas that surfaced was walking away from your desk and finding some place where you could find 30 minutes to get away from everything.

5. Relaxing before taking a break. “I really am one of those guys who gets his best ideas in the shower,” one of the men told me. “But I noticed that the ideas only occur if I am not stressed. If I am worried about something, that’s all I concentrate on in the shower. Now, I try to be stress-free before I step into the tub. It doesn’t guarantee I will get a new idea, but it seems to increase my chances.”

6. Building in a break. Within a five minute drive of her house, one of the entrepreneurs told me, is a upscale gym and a place where “I can grab something healthy to eat. I have made it a point to budget an hour a day to take advantage of both places and I refuse to check email or voice mail during that time.”

7. Fly first class. It used to be people said they used their travel time up in the air to think. But with packed planes and smaller seats that option has become more difficult. One option: Fly first class whenever you can, said one of the men I talked to. “It’s about equivalent to what coach used to be about 30 years ago. I find it helps.”

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Occupying the conscious mind with some ‘automatic’ task that allows the subconscious (Creative) mind take over works for me. You mentioned folding laundry; it could be a card game such as solitaire, or crossword puzzles. Maybe even a hobby, such as building models. If you have a partner, it could be a game of Chess, or Checkers. JP Morgan had a card table built on his yacht that would pivot to stay level with the rolling seas where he could play a game of solitaire whenever an issue was troubling him~ many times the answer to the problem would be clear after the card game.

I don’t disagree with any of the eleven ways because I believe each person is wired differently; some ideas work great for some, some don’t for others.

I have a different take ( and success ) – I think out loud and talk it thru with other people, most of the time just one person. The back-and-forth drives me to a more robust solution. I don’t even need them to have deep knowledge of my situation.

During my high-growth entrepreneur days, my equal partner and I met every morning over breakfast. My thinking was initiated during my morning workout ( = stress relief of the best kind ).

We must have done some great thinking because we were quite successful. So, my strong suggestion is know when to collaborate.

I have taken to keeping a “creative ideas” notebook. I set-up a small composition book with tabbed sections for different categories of ideas. I could have done the notebook electronically, but I found that I am more creative when I write instead of type. My favorite time to add creative entries is when I’m in the hot tub.

Such a relevant point in this ‘networked-to-the-hilt’ world that we live in. I became aware a while ago that every ping, beep, ding from my devices generated an anxiety if I couldn’t access it immediately. As I actively became mindful of this, I have sensed an increased quietness of my digital-induced anxiety and an awareness that it has led me to more time to think (sometimes out loud, sometimes making lists while doing chores)-however, the most efficient time for me is when I first sit down to work in the morning and jot down thoughts that haven’t been tainted by projects on my desk, emails, etc.